Sunday, December 31, 2006

Ah, Family...

Well, it's been an exciting family Christmas in Saskatoon. The festivities began on the 23rd with a big party for my cousin Donovan's first wedding anniversary. He got married last Christmas in Mexico, and since basically nobody from our family went they decided to have a big party for us this year in Saskatoon. I had a good time goofing off on the dance floor with my siblings and cousins - especially my cousin Ian who got totally plastered. Unfortunately we were hampered by the worst DJ ever - he didn't even have Thriller!!!! What kind of DJ has no Thriller! But we made the best of the circumstances and danced like complete idiots. Awesome! Afterwards I went out with my sisters and Vashti's boyfriend Chris to the Roxy on Broadway. Vashti force-fed me vodka, which I came to regret the next morning. We didn't stay too long though, because we were all (excepting Anne who was our designated driver) plastered and it was only the first day of Christmas celebrations! The fun part was when I got home and was locked out. I'm just lucky Cayley hadn't completely passed out yet from going out with his friends, and heard me pounding on the door.

Christmas Eve was held at my uncle Mike's farm, as always. Though this year we tried something new with the gift exchange - instead of drawing names and buying for a specific person, we all just brought a sort of generic present and then drew numbers and picked from the pile in order. Cayley and I ended up with matching sets of plates - but they're really nice! My mom foolishly picked the present that I brought, which was basically a smaller version of what I had got her for Xmas. Guess she wasn't as good at snooping under the tree as in previous years. The high point however was my uncle Scott, who got totally shitfaced and made the most hilarious toast to my grandma. She had her surgery for the latest bout of cancer moved up and went under the knife 4 days before Xmas, but she was still partying it up like the rest of us - she attributed it to the painkillers she was on. But anyways, Scott made a ridiculous speech, and then went and passed out somewhere in Mike's house. It was hilarious!

Christmas day was a production, because first we had to wait for Vashti, Anne, and Chris to come over to open presents. Those poor kids had to hit 3 different houses on Xmas day to open presents with their 3 different parents. Suck much! Anyways, I got mostly shirts....but since there was nothing I desperately wanted it was all good. I like shirts, though decidedly not as much as I like pants. I also opened my B-day present from Cayley early, because he's flying to Florida on my birthday. And he kept the chicken gift tradition alive by giving me this hideous chicken hat. Well, it's pretty funny, but I just don't know where I would ever wear it! Then we had to clean like crazy because for some reason the 'rents decided to hold a dinner at our house on Xmas day. So that basically meant that we cleaned while mom freaked out. But the dinner was nice, and fairly non eventful.

Boxing day I went to Preston Crossing with Graeme and Julianne who were hitting up Future Shop for sale printers, and I hit Old Navy to spend the giftcard I got from Julianne for Xmas. Then we went to my aunt Margaret's for dinner, with my fam (minus Vashti and Anne) and my cousin Bob and his wife and two kids. I had a good time playing Yu-gi-oh with Nathan, and got in trouble for being loud and rough-housing. I like little boys better than girls - they're so quantifiable! Besides, I was a tomboy with two older brothers, which basically meant that I played with my John Deere tractor set and not lame-o Barbies. So I find girly little girls somewhat boring.

The five-day holiday extravaganza ended with dinner at my grandparents on the 27th, with the same old Thiesson crowd. By this time though Vashti, Anne, and Chris had all left for New Years @ Tofino, but they were basically the only people absent. The hilarious story from this dinner is that my grandparents planned to have a roast as the main dish, and they plunked it in the stove in the party room of their building and came back an hour later to find out that the stove didn't really work. So we ended up eating the roast last - mmm....dessert roast.... Dinner became this sort of free-for-all and people were eating dessert while some people were still on salad! It was a very Thiesson gathering though. And then I played some sort of card game with my cousins which involved a lot of slapping of people's hands. I forget what they called it....

On the 28th I was so partied out, I didn't leave the house all day. It was awesome. Yesterday I ran errands with my mom downtown, one of which involved me going with her to Lululemon to pick out yoga pants for her. We were joking that she's become sort of like Hugh Grant's character in Two Weeks Notice - she can't make a decision with out me, at least when it comes to clothes. She now just doesn't buy any clothes at all unless I'm with her. But I think this is for the best, as she tends to pick out things at are (how can I say this diplomatically....) ugly. Well, not ugly. But wrong. Things that are wrong.

Today I went to the first live HD broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera. It's this new thing the Met is doing, and we went to our local Galaxy cinemas and watched the Magic Flute live from New York. It was pretty cool - the Magic Flute totally rocks, and it was a really cool production directed by Julie Tamor who did the Lion King on Broadway. The Magic Flute was always my favourite opera as a kid, especially the duet between Papageno and Papagena at the end! It totally rocks! My cousin Alex and aunt Judy also came, and there was actually a really good turnout for Saskatoon! And my mom heard on the news that the Silvercity in Toronto was completely sold out for the opera. I think this is a fantastic new initiative, because what are the chances you'd get to see the Met for 20 bucks, and especially if you live in, say, Saskatoon. It's a shame the CBC has no money to do something like this with the COC - especially for Canadian and/or Canadianish works like the Handmaid's Tale opera. But the CBC doesn't have enough money to HD their own shows, let along broadcast live HD operas. It's a shame though. The Handmaid's Tale was fantastic, but unless you lived in Toronto there was no way you got to see it. They played it on the radio, but trust me it wasn't the same. Anyways, I'm supposed to be going to Econoline Crush at the Roxy on Broadway tomorrow night with Graeme and Julianne, but they're stuck in Regina cause Graeme got really sick, so we'll see. I won't got on my own, because the Roxy is slightly sketchy, and who wants to go see something like that on your own! Lame!

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Velvety

So it's been a while I guess. Nothing extremely exciting really happened - Ingunn came to Vancouver and we took the ferry to Victoria and I hung out with her and her mom, and her niece and nephew for a day. Then I wrote my two finals, and I think they went pretty well. But at any rate I'll find that out soon enough.... Yesterday I flew to Toronto to play in Tom's orchestra - huzzah. I had this really weird ticket booked because I had already booked my ticket home, and it was non-refundable , so I was book to Toronto via Edmonton-Saskatoon. But I guess the Edmonton flight was really overbooked, so they just traded my ticket for a direct one! Score! It's so nice to be back in the T-dot, and Casa Zapf-Belanger. It really was my second home when I lived here. And also to be back with my dysfunctional Toronto family. Everybody in Vancouver thinks I'm weird, but among my brethren here - I'm positively normal!!! So to anybody who's in the Toronto area and feels like a concert, come see the Cirrus Ensemble tomorrow night at Walmer Road Baptist Church, 188 Lowther Avenue. I promise good times - especially at the big Caitlin party afterwards. She throws the best parties.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Love, Pain, and the Whole Crazy Thing

Well, since yesterday I had three somewhat exciting and/or interesting pieces of news. Some of you may (or may not) know that this year I am participating in BC's Universities Model Parliament as a member for the NDP. Never in UMP's history has the NDP risen to anything other than official opposition, but this year after a highly complex system of people who registered vs on-campus polling, the NDP has come out victorious!!! We get to be the government, baby! Prepare to have all your tax dollars SPENT!

Secondly, I went to physio today and found out the reason my back hurts is because my hips are out of alignment. My right hip is 1 1/2 inches below my left, and is turned down slightly, causing the bottom of my spine to bend and compress my sciatic nerve. So the physiotherapist did all these exercises to re-align my hips, and got them to within a 1/2 inch of each other. I felt so fantastic after physio, and in so much less pain, but unfortunately it didn't last and I am now sore again. But he gave me some exercises to do until I go back on Friday. C'mon hips, get in gear!

And lastly, I'm going to Toronto!!! It's so exciting!!! Tom and Michelle are organizing this orchestra concert with Tom conducting, and apparently every single violist in town is busy on that day (the 18th). They have Michelle's brother and another girl signed up, but they needed a section leader. And since I was flying home on the 16th anyways, I'm now just going to Toronto on the 16th to hang out at Michelle's for a couple of days and play this concert! Yay! I'm so excited, to see 2/3s of the girls (but I get to see the other 1/3 this weekend), and my whole extended Toronto family! I must admit I've been slightly homesick for Toronto - not that I haven't been having a good time here, but it's always hard to move somewhere that you don't know anybody and to start over completely. I've done it before, but it's always hard. Anyways, I must now go lie in bed and watch Scrubs on my laptop.

Monday, December 04, 2006

It's Official

Yup, it's official. I am now an old lady. My back's still bothering me, so I decided to get it checked up on. And according to the doctor, I have 'acute lumbar strain and sciatica' and she referred me to physio. This sucks man. This is the second time in 2 years that I've been in physio - first for my knees and now for my back. When will the madness end!!!!! I'm now going to lie on the couch and moan.